Process of Elimination

I wonder how screwed up their percentage calculation algorithm is to miss the target sum of 100% by 2.

The task of rounding the percents on options so that they make sense is not trivial, I had this task not long ago and the simple concept of 2-line "divide by sum, multiply by 100, round" had to be replaced with good 50 lines of code to make the percent add up to 100%, never give more percent to an option with less votes and so on. But I wonder what kind of screw-up did happen here, seriously.

My first bet was "Wow, they provide access using DTMF signals or a modem connection for communication with the system!"

This would actually be an amazing feature allowing to use the dial-in service with embedded devices and external automated services, say "transfer your heart monitor results right to the physician", "query the database and get a few row of records automatically" etc.

I wonder how screwed up their percentage calculation algorithm is to miss the target sum of 100% by 2.

The task of rounding the percents on options so that they make sense is not trivial, I had this task not long ago and the simple concept of 2-line "divide by sum, multiply by 100, round" had to be replaced with good 50 lines of code to make the percent add up to 100%, never give more percent to an option with less votes and so on. But I wonder what kind of screw-up did happen here, seriously.

Herding emus may be an appropriate action in some circumstances, but definitely not in others. Which circumstances are appropriate should be determined by a broad consensus among people who are knowledgeable on this subject, and due democractic support from the lay public.

I wonder how screwed up their percentage calculation algorithm is to miss the target sum of 100% by 2.

The task of rounding the percents on options so that they make sense is not trivial, I had this task not long ago and the simple concept of 2-line "divide by sum, multiply by 100, round" had to be replaced with good 50 lines of code to make the percent add up to 100%, never give more percent to an option with less votes and so on. But I wonder what kind of screw-up did happen here, seriously.

Although a pretty messed up description, "AT&T Language" is probably one of the best options for many non-English persons. "AT&T Language" is a service by which you can have access to an interpreter over the phone - this includes interpreters of 140 different langauges.

5.49 => 5
18.49 => 18
75.49 => 75

You've obviously never had to deal with them on a technical level. I work at a telecom call center, and it took quite a while to figure out where the PBX meets the SMAS with the extended d-marc inbetween. And let's not forget the Hoot'n'Hollar and ring-down circuits. Just be careful not to pull your bridge coils, or else your levels are going to be long!

I wonder how screwed up their percentage calculation algorithm is to miss the target sum of 100% by 2.

The task of rounding the percents on options so that they make sense is not trivial, I had this task not long ago and the simple concept of 2-line "divide by sum, multiply by 100, round" had to be replaced with good 50 lines of code to make the percent add up to 100%, never give more percent to an option with less votes and so on. But I wonder what kind of screw-up did happen here, seriously.

A simple truncation of the decimals will do this.

5.66%, 18.66%, 75.67%.

This could be caused by display formatting while the internal calculations are correct.

I wonder how screwed up their percentage calculation algorithm is to miss the target sum of 100% by 2.

The task of rounding the percents on options so that they make sense is not trivial, I had this task not long ago and the simple concept of 2-line "divide by sum, multiply by 100, round" had to be replaced with good 50 lines of code to make the percent add up to 100%, never give more percent to an option with less votes and so on. But I wonder what kind of screw-up did happen here, seriously.

Don't they normally just write "Percentages may not add up to 100 due to rounding?" I've never heard of trying to massage the numbers to always equal 100.

42% is not a majority of the whole.
42% could be a majority of the votes as the other 58% could be split evenly among 5 other candidates giving them each 11.6%.

Without context, statistics mean nothing. So in the conversation who is right? Funny enough, they both are.

No, 42% of anything is never a majority of that thing. If 42% of the votes were for Thatcher, she did not receive a majority of the votes. The word you're looking for when you say "a majority of the votes" is plurality.

42% is not a majority of the whole.
42% could be a majority of the votes as the other 58% could be split evenly among 5 other candidates giving them each 11.6%.

Without context, statistics mean nothing. So in the conversation who is right? Funny enough, they both are.

No, 42% of anything is never a majority of that thing. If 42% of the votes were for Thatcher, she did not receive a majority of the votes. The word you're looking for when you say "a majority of the votes" is plurality.

Well, in a way, 42% could be a majority, not just a plurality. If, in an election, only 42% of the general populace voted, but they all voted for a single candidate, then that candidate would have received the largest majority possible (100%), but would only have been endorsed by 42% of the populace.

Well, in a way, 42% could be a majority, not just a plurality. If, in an election, only 42% of the general populace voted, but they all voted for a single candidate, then that candidate would have received the largest majority possible (100%), but would only have been endorsed by 42% of the populace.

Correct, although my point was that what KattMan was describing was a plurality, not a majority—and that 42% of the votes is obviously never a majority of the votes.

Well, in a way, 42% could be a majority, not just a plurality. If, in an election, only 42% of the general populace voted, but they all voted for a single candidate, then that candidate would have received the largest majority possible (100%), but would only have been endorsed by 42% of the populace.

Correct, although my point was that what KattMan was describing was a plurality, not a majority—and that 42% of the votes is obviously never a majority of the votes.

I stand corrected, but to the layman, plurality means nothing because they never studied statistics and don't understand the difference here. To the layman, saying they got the majority of the votes when it is 42% and everyone else got barely over 10% just seems like the right thing to say, no matter how wrong they are in reality, they are correct in what really matters, meaning Thatcher got more votes than anyone else.

I love examples like this, because it shows the fallacy of statistics.

42% is not a majority of the whole.
42% could be a majority of the votes as the other 58% could be split evenly among 5 other candidates giving them each 11.6%.

Without context, statistics mean nothing. So in the conversation who is right? Funny enough, they both are.

Nope, it explicitly says the majority of PEOPLE (meaning people who voted, in this case). You're right, though; in that election, the Conservatives won with ~42%, with the rest mostly split between Labour and the Liberals.

Laie Techie:

I think it's obvious: The vast majority of the 42% who voted for Mrs. Thatcher had something in common which the Lecturer could not say because the host interrupted.

If the comma after 'people' wasn't there, then that would be the case. You can't just randomly go around ignoring commas, though.

I used the same physics software as the first example; first, and I have to say this whenever I talk about that software, IT SUCKED. Hard. That out of the way, the number of attempts is for each question. It can be set by the teacher; some classes I used it for had 5 attempts, one class had 20. However, in all the classes I took, if you only had x options then your score was based on how many tries it took you out of x to get it right. Thus, process of elimination never worked for me, in any of the classes.

Actually, it's a much richer language than that. They have many words for "obscure calling plans where you hope to pay us a tiny bit less by following arcane rules but actually pay us a lot more" but no word for "refund" or "service credit."

Still, it's quite easy to translate the calling plans into English once you know that they all mean "pay us more money." Too many people get hung up on a word-for-word translation and miss the entire point of the writing.